


Girls, Boys, School, and Ghosts

by Alice_Rider



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bullying, F/M, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Rider/pseuds/Alice_Rider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is a student at a local boarding school and has been bumped to the bottom of the social ladder. The Royal Five make her life a living hell, but she'll find a few friends to help her get through her troubles</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls, Boys, School, and Ghosts

You are about to embark on a dangerous journey, one full of treachery, peril, and, most likely, your demise. Only fools and masochists dare to wander into the abyss, and those select few never face the path ahead unarmed like you’re about to do. You don’t fall into either of those categories, but something much lower on the rungs of the ever shifting popularity ladder.  
But before you can go on this journey, you need a name  
==>Enter name  
Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are trying to bustle your way through the throng of students crowded in the mess hall to the nearest exit without dumping your food all over the place.  
Which, despite what people may say otherwise, is not as easy as it sounds. Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds. Don’t you know that?  
Of course you do. You are well aware of the fact. Because you are not just traversing the lunch crowd for some peace and quiet, but you are also ducking under book bags and bodies in an attempt to conceal yourself from the group sitting at the table at the epicenter of the commotion.  
The five queens sat there, with their noses turned up at the common rabble, their perfect paper skin and sugar powder hair somehow highlighted in the crappy glow of the cafeteria bulbs. They all had high, twinkling voices and jingle bell laughs and had almost every guy within a five mile radius wrapped around their bony little fingers. You were absolutely petrified of them.  
You try to keep a straight face; they can smell fear.  
==>Rose: Youth roll to the closest exit  
What a horrible idea. You can’t believe it even crossed your mind. You’d get squashed under all the pairs of feet jumbling about. Plus, you’d spill your food.  
==>Fine then. Proceed to the door post haste  
The way out is within spitting distance of you when a pixie voice creeps its way across the room. It is a grating sound, one that reminds you of nails scraping across a blackboard.  
“Oh, Rose.” The chill of your demise bites at the nerves of your spine.  
Crap, that was Eris, she who ruled over the Land of Drama and Gossip. On a day like today, she was the person you wanted to hear from.  
==>Rose: Pretend like you didn’t hear her and get the hell out of there  
Absconding never seemed such an inviting option before. You don’t question the impulse; you’re gone before the rest of the pack catches your scent.  
The empty halls of your school are a welcome change of pace from the mayhem and discord presiding over the mess hall.  
You find refuge at an abandoned picnic table saved from the rain. Mother Nature apparently took notice of the dying summer month and had decided to go all out this year; today, you were just lucky the sky wasn’t bombarding you with chunks of ice.  
The Grimoire sits comfortably in your lap, the spidery cursive absorbing most of your concentration; you only take another bite of food when you remember that you needed some nourishment; it wasn’t often. Had you not been so rudely interrupted every time you picked it up, you’d be done with it already. A book of the arcane arts and the creatures that lived in the furthest ring was simply too good to resist. External forces thought otherwise.  
==>Rose: Notice the guy sitting in the corner.  
Oh, him? That’s just Strider, avoiding the lunch mob not unlike you, most likely. He’d been outcast from the school hierarchy by his own personal demons too—most of which were associated with the football team. He was a loner and never listened, but he did his work and never argued with the teachers so there wasn’t anything explicitly interesting about him, other than those shades he never seemed to be without. He was just there when he was there and wasn’t when he wasn’t. Heck, you’d never even said two words to the guy.  
==>Rose: Be the Strider  
What a ridiculous notion. You’re not sure how you could “be” anyone but you. And even if you could theoretically snap out of your consciousness and into his state of being, he probably has some sort of ironic bullshit barrier or something that only cool people could pass.  
Strider’s an ass. You haven’t wasted your time analyzing his idiotic antics and you’re not about to start now.  
You return to your Grimoire and set all these cockamamie concepts aside. You’re not sure what’s gotten into you lately, even briefly considering half the things that cross your mind these past few days. You were letting the Holy Five get to your head.  
How you wish you could set even the lowliest of these majestic horrors upon the reigning matriarchy, just to scare them a bit, enough to leave you alone. Your life would be so much simpler and less appalling.  
Absorbed in your reading, you mistake a slamming door for a clap of thunder.  
“Oh, Rose.”  
==>Rose: Abscond the heck out of there  
It’s too late! The Holy Five are already circling your table and you’ve no room to run. They’re all perfectly jagged pearly white smiles and filed nails curled into claws. The most you are able to do now is duck your head and pray they bore of hissing insults at you quickly.  
Adriana, queen of the Land of Class and Socializing, slammed her tiny little hands on the wood to grab your attention or maybe just to scare you a bit. You look up and her angelic smile makes your heart skip a beat in the worst of ways.  
“We missed you at lunch, Rose. Why’d you come out here where it’s all wet and nasty?” There’s venom dripping from her honeyed words.  
“I-It’s cold inside.” Damn, you stuttered. The rest of the wolf pack tightens up around you; they feed off the sense of fear.  
“Well, it’s no wonder. You’re too skinny. And that awful school jacket isn’t going to help.” She picks at your jacket and her claws scrape your skin. She pretends nothing happened but you saw it in her eyes: she got off to this kind of stuff.  
“She’s so pale too.” Eris stepped up to snatch your hand and show it to the others. Her fingers are an iron vice from which nothing escapes at a temperature so hot ice shoots up your arm. “Do you ever get any sun? You probably read in your room all day, right? I mean, it’s not like you have many friends to hang out with. Reading’s all you got.”  
You can’t find the words for an argument; there’s a lump in your throat that’s blocking your voice box and your air pipe. You just have to sit there and take it.  
“Her hair is super short too!” The ruler of the Land of Girls and Undermining chirped in and began to tear her hands through your hair. Keaira knew no bounds when it came to this; she’d be the first one to cause physical pain and she’d be the last one still giving bruises even when the others stopped, but she was never the only one; she just served as the instigator. “There’s nothing on your neck to keep the cold off.” She pulled down hard; you bit your lip to stop the tears. “You need to grow it out. You almost look like a boy.”  
Leila and Desdemona moved in to pick at the only thing they had left.  
“She tries to compensate. She tried to put something on her face.”  
“There’s too much.”  
“It’s all black. It so does not go with her skin.”  
“She’s so depressing.”  
“She looks like a clown.”  
They took turns swiping their grimy fingers across your face and smearing lipstick in ugly patters across your cheeks and passing your face between their pair of palms roughly to add another comment. You couldn’t help it now, the water in your eyes pooled over.  
They all took turns tearing you to pieces, grabbing and poking and pulling you in whatever way they saw fit. They laughed at your clothes, at your book, at your personality, at your tears. By the time they were done you were choking on sobs, nursing cuts where their nails scratched the skin you hadn’t covered. Keaira gave you one last shove into the rain before they laughed their devilish twinkling peals and walked away in unison, the clicking if their heels on the concrete sounding off like gunshots.  
You stand on two shaky legs and wipe your eyes on your sleeves; you only succeed in smearing more of your eyeliner on your face.  
==>Rose: Abscond to the nearest bathroom.  
You don’t even care who sees at this point.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is something that's been in the works for a while and even though I'm really excited about this story line, I may need some motivation to actually get going and write the next couple chapters. And I really love comments; good, bad, suggestions, and anything else, please don't hesitate!  
> So yeah, being the victim of bullying isn't fun, I should know.


End file.
